Behind the Scenes at Global-Roam

My twelve year journey with this company – seeing it grow its customer base, and product range, from nothing to be quite substantial – has been one of great learning for me.

Of my greatest areas of learning has been with respect to others within in the company.  I have struggled, at times, due to my lack of prior experience and preparation.

For some time I’ve been pondering the apparent paradoxes across a variety of books and other materials I’ve read – with respect to the concept of Strengths and Weaknesses.

Where I have read this, it has been with respect to an individual’s own strengths and weaknesses – however I believe that the pointers that I’ve learnt are also applicable at an organisational level (where a strength is more commonly termed “competitive advantage”).

After quite a bit of reflection, it currently* seems that to be truly strong, an individual (or a company) needs to have the right combination of all three of the following factors:

* I say “currently”, as it seems that the learning journey I am on almost guarantees that my view will become even more nuanced in future.

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Let’s get one thing out-of-the-way straight away, for those who are easily distracted – yes, it is an unfortunate choice of acronym.  Back in 1988, when the book was written, political debate was not as lightweight and sound-bite-sized as at present.

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I can’t recall who it was who first suggested I read the book, but it was some time ago and (since that time) I have read the book several times.

The Book	What we thought
“Spin Selling” by Neil Rackham	It’s certainly worth it, for us, given the nature of our business

I’ve posted separately about why we read, and review, so many books (and about the links above)… .

With this book in particular, I’d strongly recommend you pick up a copy in order to gain the value – what follows is my attempt to just hit the highlights.

The book describes the SPIN technique, which evolved based on some fairly extensive studies of sales effectiveness completed by the author during the time he was founding the Huthwaite business.

Here’s a brief 5-minute video in which Neil outlines what SPIN selling is all about.

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Started reading “Who says elephants can’t dance?” this weekend [later reviewed here] – Louis Gerstner’s account of the turnaround he helped create at IBM from 1993 to 2002.

Though we’re a massively different size of business, I am intrigued by his recount of the position the company was in at the time, and the steps taken to rectify.

I’m particularly intrigued to read on, to find out more about what he did to ensure that the company focus returned to the customer – as this has been one of our central challenges in the changes we’ve been making in the past year or two.

We’ve certainly made some good progress, though I know that there is much more we can do.  The week before last was not one of our better ones – but it won’t be wasted, if we can learn from it.

Picked this book up off the shelf this weekend and read it straight through (to the consternation of my wife – what will they write about next, she says).

The Book	What we thought
“Getting Naked – a Business Fable” by Patrick Lencioni	Easy read, and worthwhile

I’ve posted separately about why we read, and review, so many books (and about the links above)…

As the title implies, it’s written in fictional story form, about the cultural difference between a large downtown “up or out” management consulting firm and a smaller close-knit entrepreneurial one.

It was an quick and easy read – both because of the way in which it was written, and also because it parallels with some of what I’m keen on embedding deep within our own culture as part of our Core Value of Openness.

At a deeper level, my view is that it’s also predicated on a primary value of “Customers First”.

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In reading the book “The One Thing you need to know” by Marcus Buckingham recently, I came across the following paragraph (p162 in my copy).

I thought I’d clip it here in a short post as it is closely aligned with one part of what I mean by calling “Autonomy” a Core value:

The author paraphrases Brad Anderson (CEO of Best Buy until 2009) by noting that

“Brad is exceptionally vivid in showing employees whom their primary audience should be.

What he is saying … is that a leader must not be clear on all points, and that one of the areas in which he should allow significant ambiguity is in the strategies and tactics selected by his employees.  Yes, he should be clear about who he is trying to serve, but then he must actively encourage his employees to devise novel and as yet unproven ways of serving them”

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On Friday last week (5th March) at Beer O’clock, we brainstormed about what it means (to us) to share the primary value of “Customers First”.

We will continue this process in subsequent weeks with the aim of identifying the specifics of what each core value means to us, and how we (and others) can hold ourselves accountable.

The following is a shortened list of some of the points made during the brainstorming session (a fuller list is here as a restricted post).

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I have previously written about how we need to be focused on delivering value to our customers in order to achieve our vision for the growth of our business.

A relentless drive to deliver real value to our customers is one of my Core Values.

I know that this is not the way every company approaches business, but it is where our bus is headed.

Hence it was with great interest that I had a chance to read through Roger Martin’s article “The Age of Customer Capitalism” in the HBR Magazine for January-February 2010 – as this provided another reason to do the same.

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